Comment by DaSHacka
5 days ago
> It may be that we never see a monolithic superpower of the same kind again for generations. The post ww2 world order was really very very kind to the USA.
And why do you think it couldn't remain that way? Considering SpaceX, OpenAI, and Google were made far, far closer to today than to WWII, why would the assumption be that the output suddenly stops?
well in the past year, we have stopped funding science in the US, arrested and deported thousands of foreign students here legally, removing the pipeline for the smartest people in the world to move to the US and start world changing companies, and started a trade war with the entire world, making American businesses much less competitive at buying/selling goods internationally.
to consider your examples specifically, Musk and Brin were both immigrants to the US, and musk specifically did exactly the type of visa shenanigans that now is landing people in El Salvador
The US used to be run by people with the ability to think strategically, or by people who listened to educated people who could think strategically. The current US leadership either allows or endorses the capricious whims of an TV-educated idiot to consistently undermine national security and the most fundamental national interests. The complete and total mismanagement of the covid pandemic stands as a perfect example of the scale of the positively massive amount of preventable destruction being wrought presently. That’s just one out of many.
Hard to build high level stuff while the cities are flooding or burning, measles are spreading, the food is becoming toxic, the water is becoming undrinkable, out of control rogue agencies are kidnapping people indiscriminately off the streets, the literacy levels are falling precipitously, and a greater and greater percentage of the population struggles to buy food, much less healthcare or secondary education (or a useful primary education). You simply won’t have the talent pools required to do hard things at scale after a while. This is to say nothing of the complete unpredictability of the economics of supply chains, as incoherent economic policies are arbitrarily whipsawing tariffs around on a monthly basis. It becomes impossible to plan a year in advance.
You need some basic levels of functioning society and infrastructure and economy to build advanced institutions and structures and companies and technology. The US has been attacking its own society’s foundations for decades, and has recently accelerated the pace substantially.
I personally anticipate civil breakdown within a generation, certainly not continued technological innovation.